


a standing death

by aliferlia



Category: Havemercy Series - Jaida Jones & Danielle Bennett
Genre: M/M, Mild Gore, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-03
Updated: 2013-03-03
Packaged: 2017-12-04 05:21:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/707025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aliferlia/pseuds/aliferlia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Assassins! Curses! Needless angst! Must be Wednesday in the Ke-Han.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a standing death

**Author's Note:**

> so this accidentally ended up being CSI: Xi’an my bad
> 
> also most of the OCs’ names are lifted from either the Heike Monogatari or the Genji Monogatari because I am an unimaginative loser
> 
> also also guess who’s been rereading The Golden Bough lately YUP THIS KID so go have a look at that if you want to know more about sympathetic magic and the relationship between wound and weapon I promise I didn’t bullshit it into existence

A storm had come down from the mountains on a chilly north-west wind: rain spoke loud on the roof, and small birds woke and complained. I remember I sat very still on the edge of the dark garden and watched the lanterns hiss and spit in the murk. There was a scroll in my lap. I had forgotten it a long while ago.

‘Lord, it is late,’ said a boy: whose name I knew, whose face was familiar. ‘It is late and it is cold. My lord will take ill.’

I said, ‘Keep the candle burning.’

At midnight, the physician came to speak with me. His face was grey and drawn, and when he knelt before me I saw him supress a shiver of weariness, though his long strong hands were steady. In them he held a fold of red silk. His name was Men Hsiang: he had been my brother’s physician before he had been mine, and our father’s before that: he had overseen my birth, and his had been first hands to hold me. When he spoke, it was with great sympathy. When he fell silent, it was in genuine remorse. He put the silk into my hands and told me, ‘I have done what I can.’

I thanked him: asked him, as gently as I could, to take some solid rest, for I knew how he overworked himself. He left, and with him went the boy to see him safe to his chambers. Alone, I sat turning the red packet over and over between my palms. I was not afraid.

* * *

Bloody against the morning stood the autumn leaves, flat five-fingered things that shook in the white air. Clouds of steam rose up from stone baths and mingled with the mist. I was clothed and groomed, presented with a light meal, accompanied in stately procession to the hall of the throne. I spent the day busily engaged in comparing reports from our many spies and discussing matters with my advisors. Four attacks within castle walls in the space of six weeks had unsettled us all badly.

The recent doings of Volstov in particular were picked apart in fine detail, treaty notwithstanding. Nothing was concluded: no fresh threat had come from that quarter, not so far as we could see, although we had been blind to their workings before. Suspicion shifted closer to home: subtle allegations of treachery against longstanding enemies were lobbed like darts across the council-room. I spoke little. I was watching not their faces but their servants. Kouje had taught me that trick years ago.

‘That my lord values his privacy is, of course, understood,’ the lord Heike reminded me, toward the close of the day, ‘and certainly none among us would dream to suggest to intrude upon the sanctity of his isolation, but he cannot be left unprotected, not now. I would humbly offer my own -’

‘I have a bodyguard,’ I reminded him in turn. ‘Your gracious offer is most kind, but I must decline it.’

There followed a long pause. The lord Heike’s first adviser, a wizened old man, very wise, very cunning, leaned down as though touched by fit of coughing, covered his mouth with his sleeve. The lord Heike seemed to ignore him. ‘My lord,’ he insisted, ‘should another attack be made - should someone dare to come against my lord himself - my lord needs -’

‘I have a bodyguard.’

The matter was not pressed again after that. I knew that it was a childish and inexcusable show of weakness. It made no matter. It proved only what all the world already knew: that lacking him I lacked myself.

* * *

My earliest memory is not of Kouje, but of my brother sitting alone on the steps of one of the great palace gardens and sharpening a knife. I was alone, and frightened, and lost. His robes were deeply red among the greenery, his face in the mist very pale.

I don’t remember what I said to him, because I was very small, but I do remember that he told me something like, ‘You are too small to walk about on your own. You should always have someone with you.’

To this day there is a scar just beneath my chin that no one has ever noticed, not even Kouje. I think that, to my brother, testing his blade against my skin was truly only a joke. I remember that he was frustrated that I did not find it funny: I remember how when I started crying and he grabbed my wrist hard enough to bruise, his face was red, his lips pressed tight with annoyance. This was before he became a man, before his cruelties grew subtler and more guarded.

I think there was a time, just after his death, when I used to believe that if I had only been stronger and braver - if I had only been kinder to him - he might not have become what he did. I know now that he died as he had been born, a monster, and that no sympathy and no strength could have saved me from him. Still I loved him, and still I love his memory. There is no shame in that.

I do remember his voice saying, ‘It was only a joke,’ although I cannot remember when he said it, or why, or to whom. He played a good deal of jokes on me. There is a court story - fashionable these days, of course - that a very young Kouje once threatened him with a broken nose if he kept up such behaviour.

‘I was very young - only eight or nine,’ Kouje said, flushing, the only time I ever asked him about it. It had not been three weeks since I had been made emperor, and stories about our gallantry were all the rage: it had not been two weeks since I had first taken him into my bed, and he was still very cautious, very apologetic. ‘He very nearly had me put to death for it. It was only my father’s long years of loyalty, and the understanding that I had spoken up on your behalf, that saved me.’

I had never seen his cheeks so red. Greatly daring, I touched one out of curiosity. He drew back, terribly embarrassed. ‘That was brave of you,’ I told him.

‘It was foolish,’ he said. ‘If I had been executed, I would not have been able to serve you. I learned then that it was not enough to be strong, or brave. I had to be clever as well. I would give my life for you in a moment: you know that: but then who would give his life for you the next time, and the next?’

I laughed. My brother’s death was still a near and painful at that point, the memory of my father’s only a little less sharp, the weight of my rule new and heavy. Yet I was alive, and Kouje’s skin was warm, his arms strong, our nakedness to each other an unfamiliar but obvious thing: and so I laughed. ‘I think I have had quite enough of death these past months,’ I comforted him, softly. ‘I shall try my best to avoid it, at least for a little time. Still, I should not be surprised if you did find a way to protect me even from beyond the grave.’

‘It is bad luck even to speak of such things,’ he protested. Swallowing, eyes downcast, he put his hand very carefully against my throat. I could feel how his fingertips trembled. He had not yet reconciled this with himself, I knew: believed still, and perhaps always would, that rank defined worth in some incontrovertible way, that to desire me was presumptuous, to lay loving hands on my flesh profane. Still his bravery won out, even against himself, for my sake: he drew me close and said, ‘I would.’ He kissed my forehead. He said, ‘I would, every time.’ 

* * *

I had thought, at first, that Kouje had simply tripped: that he had risen to come to my side and stumbled. He made no sound, only lay curled on the floor. For a long moment, no one moved. No one understood. Very suddenly, it seemed, blood was pooling under him. It was dark and unimpressive. Screaming began. I barely heard it. The knife had flown so swift and so sharp that none of us had seen it, none of us except him. Had he not stepped in front of it, it would have taken me in the throat.

He had been close-lipped and tight-faced for weeks, more aggressive in his ways, more cautious with me than ever: fearing to leave me alone even for a few hours, insisting on spending the night at my side instead of slipping away as he often did. Even so, he barely slept. The entire court was on edge due to the attacks - a knife to the throat of one of my generals, a knife in the back of a strategist, a dart to the eye of my personal scribe, none of the weapons found, none of the deaths witnessed - and I was certain that Kouje knew something, or was in the process of learning it.

‘I cannot say yet,’ he had said to me that very morning in the grey light of dawn as we lay together. ‘I have heard - I have suspicions, but I cannot risk accusing the wrong man. You understand that.’

I had nodded, touched his face. ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘These attacks cannot continue: but to make claims I cannot substantiate would only cause unrest. Worse still, if I acted on your information and slighted an innocent man’s honour, they would certainly call for your head in reparation, or at the very least for your dismissal. I cannot do without you, not now. Bring me information that is certain, and I will act on it. I trust you in this. Take your time.’

Instead, he took a knife to the belly. Within half an hour the poison on its blade had turned his lips blue, and he seized violently several times. I was not allowed in the room. I was half a palace away, deep in hiding at the heart of a maze of corridors no assassin could penetrate, surrounded by strong and trustworthy men. It was hours before I was told of the poison in his blood, of the way his fingernails had begun to dissolve, his throat to constrict.

At the time I took some comfort in the fact that I did not weep.

* * *

Candlelight flickered on the screens. If I narrowed my eyes it looked as though the painted birds were moving along the gilded branches. The room was heavily guarded by men I trusted: but here inside I was alone. Kouje’s breath came shallow but steady, so soft I could scarcely hear it for the rain. I made no move to touch him. I had spoken his name, once and only once, when I was first allowed to go to him, but he had not woken. I had known then that this was beyond his power to undo. There had never before been a time in our lives when he had not come when I called.

I did not lift the sheets. I did not press his bandages. I did not touch his blue lips or his black-veined hands. I counted his breaths and was thankful for small victories.

There came a noise of footsteps from the passageways behind me: muffled conversation, the scrape of a screen door. I turned, my heart beating fast, half-ready to defend Kouje against assassins if I had to: but it was only my physician, Men Hsiang, accompanied by three of his apprentices and a servant or two. There was a confusion of bowing as they found me within.

‘I had not meant to startle you, my lord,’ Men Hsiang said to me, and so I knew that my fear must have shown in my face.

‘Not at all,’ I said. I swallowed, took time with my next words. ‘I was on the point of sending for you. He seems - worse.’

He came to sit down at my side, his apprentices following at a respectful pace, ready to do his bidding. He pulled back the sheets, laid Kouje’s struggling breast bare: carefully began to undo the bandages. I did not look away. I would not show fear, not now, not when the hurt had been meant for me. The wound itself was nearly black: it stank like death and was riddled with some yellow weep. Infection spread from it in a red web. Men Hsiang called for linen and hot water, cleansed it as best he could - touched Kouje’s throat, his forehead, pricked the crooks of his knees and elbows with strong pins. He sat back.

‘My lord - do you have the dagger with you now?’ he asked.

I took the red silk package from my sleeve and unfolded it: flinched. The blade of the little jade dagger inside had taken on a strange colour, spiderwebbed with faint lines of corruption where only the night before it had been milky pale. Even the red jewelled eyes of the dragonshead hilt had softened, somehow, as though touched by rot.

Men Hsiang took it from me, careful to keep it within its silk wrapping: but even that slow movement set the tip of the blade crumbling. Kouje stirred, cried out: sweat rolled down his face. My fists clenched in my lap. I relaxed them, kept my face calm.

‘It is as I thought,’ Men Hsiang said, heavily. ‘This is not poison. It cannot be. This is magic, my lord, of a kind akin to blood magic, but in many ways more devious. I - I have seen it before.’ Here he paused, for blood magic and all its many forms remained outlawed, and even to admit to a knowledge of it could be dangerous. I nodded, and he continued, though in rather more formal tones. ‘My lord knows, of course, that all magic stems from a source of some kind: that there is an inextricable relationship between that source and anything that derives power from it. My lord knows also that blood magic is inherently sympathetic in nature: it corrupts a small part of the body’s vital force in such a way as to corrupt the body proper. It seems to me -’ He broke off, considered the blade a moment. ‘It seems to me that this knife has been - subjected to a magic that is similar in theory, if different in execution.’

‘Then it is not poison?’ I asked: gestured minutely towards Kouje.

‘No.’ With tremendous care, he folded the silk close about the dagger. ‘The weapon is linked to the wound it has caused. There exists between them now a close harmony, magically induced and very powerful. Then, instead of cursing the man, which would necessitate close and prolonged contact, and instead of requiring costly poison, a spell of ruin is woven into the knife. As it rots, so does the wound that it caused, by virtue of their harmony. Thus the flesh is undone very quickly, since no antivenin exists to counter the corruption.’

The rain came down. The candlelight beat and beat against the goldwork, guttering quick as my heart in the cold wind.

Men Hsiang said, ‘Many years ago, an arrow dealt a wound much like this one to my brother.’ He reached for fresh linen provided by one of his boys, measured it against Kouje’s breast, had it snipped to size: began to bind the wound anew. He said, ‘He did not survive it.’

* * *

It was never idyllic, that journey of ours, as the stones beneath my back reminded me each night. They made songs about it afterwards, songs both great and little, light-hearted and grave. None of them told of the stiff necks and burnt fish. Most days the air was heavy with the smell of rain and chill rivers, the mists dank, the hunger constant. Still he was there, always at my side: still we slept under one cloak. I remember best of all the rocking of Aiko’s caravan, the smells of greasepaint and straw and overripe melons, the sweat of horses and men: outside songs and quarrels, inside the noise only of his breath.

‘It is light,’ he told me, the second morning, or the third: sat up, brushed the hair from my face. He thought me asleep. I had never held so still in all my life. ‘My l- wife! Wife, it is light. Wake up.’

I supposed he must have noticed someone or other moving within earshot outside, but I smiled all the same: I could not help myself. He tried so hard. His fingers found my lips: he touched the corners of my smile. I laughed sleepily, ducked my head, rolled away. He shook my shoulder. I pushed him away. So it went on. So we woke piecemeal to each other in the dark of the caravan. He held me against his shoulder while I rubbed my eyes.

We walked together under the leaflit shade of the trees as the caravans trundled along beside us, I stumbling every now and then on the rough ground. After a time, and without a word, he simply slid his arm around my waist. I grinned, pleased, and put my head to his shoulder. One of the wagon-drivers whistled. I hid my face in Kouje’s neck, felt his blush as hot as my own. We walked through the green spaces of the world and were undisturbed. If any idyll were to be built of my life it would have been founded there.

None of the songs ever spoke of that. 

* * *

I called into my presence a magician who had once served my father, a cousin of the imperial household named Yoshida: and with him two friends I trusted, Niou and Kaoru. Though young, the two had served their time in the military before embarking on imperial careers, and were my especial advisors. With them also was the lord Heike and the lady Reizei, both courtiers of honour. Despite some discouragement I had written already to my friend in Volstov, the magician Royston of Thremedon, since he and his associates had had success in curing my own ailments some years before. I spoke to my counsellors about blood magic. I spoke to them more closely about sympathetic magic. I showed them the dagger. I asked them, very frankly, not who they thought had orchestrated these attacks, but what they thought their nature implied the perpetrator stood to gain.

‘They have been levelled against my lord’s personal servants, but not against my lord himself,’ said Niou, after some careful conference with two of his servants. ‘The knife that struck my lord’s most esteemed retainer would seem to have been aimed at my lord: but consider that his retainer’s loyalty is well known, and his speed and strength formidable. Any knife aimed at him would easily have been dodged. The simplest way to be certain that my lord’s brave retainer would take the knife would be to aim it at my lord instead.’

‘Ah! I hadn’t thought of that!’ Kaoru broke in with some interest: then, when Lord Heike and Lord Yoshida frowned at him, flushed a little, composed his face. ‘That is, it seems to me, little though I understand, that Niou may, shockingly, be right.’ He struck his fan once on the corner of the table, flicked a glance at Niou. ‘Even a broken clock is right twice a day, I suppose.’

Niou’s composure gave way for a brief moment to a scowl: the two of them were dear friends, and had saved each other lives many times in battle, but that did not lessen their legendary rivalry. ‘ _Hardly_ the time,’ he hissed across the table. ‘Besides, your _face_ -’

I held up my hands for peace, for the older lords were beginning to shuffle restlessly with contempt: though in truth their rivalry always cheered me, and I had sought their company as much for their quick wit as for their insight. ‘My friends,’ I said, gently, ‘please, let us remember the matter at hand.’

The lady Reizei spoke. She had been widowed young, but had held her husband’s estates through sheer force of will for many years and refused to be shut away or remarried, instead making a name for herself at court for her great wisdom: and though now her hair was almost wholly white, still she held herself straight-backed and proud. I had been terrified of her as a child.

‘My lord,’ she said, casting a look of cold disdain toward Kaoru and Niou, ‘it is clear that while great care has been taken to make it seem as though you are in danger of attack, even greater care has been devoted to ensuring that you are not. Your personal assistants and confidantes have been targeted, but never you yourself, save as a ruse to ensure the injury of your bodyguard. It has been seventy-two hours since he was removed from you, and yet you remain safe. Whatever the purpose of this conspiracy may be, it is not to take your life.’

‘I have reason to believe that Kouje had some knowledge of the perpetrator’s identity,’ I agreed.  ‘He seemed to think it was a member of our court. Certainly that would have been cause to have him removed, and would moreover contribute to the illusion that I was being targeted.’

‘I disagree,’ said Lord Heike, then. ‘The speed and devotion of my lord’s retainer is well known, certainly, but surely if the criminal were intent on preserving my lord’s life, they would not risk it on the fallibility of a single man. I believe that these vicious and heinous attacks are aimed my lord. More likely than not, it is the doing of Volstov, and their new woman ruler: we did not sign a treaty with her, remember! Their use of so ancient and arcane a form of magic may even be a further attempt to deceive us. Certainly no one here uses this kind of unclean magic anymore, not even Lord Yoshida.’

Yoshida stirred, blinked. ‘It is true that few now live who know the secrets of this art,’ he said. ‘It is highly unlikely that any Volstov man could have come by the knowledge. There are perhaps five men in the world who understand it, five or six. To be sure, I learned it once, long ago, but I have lost much of what I once knew.’

‘Yet you did know something of it once,’ Lord Heike pointed out. ‘Can you not suggest any cure for my lord’s bodyguard?’

Yoshida frowned: he was a slow-spoken old man, square in the jaw, rheumy in the eye, sad and quiet and careful. ‘For me to attempt to undoing the charm that was set on the knife would be a great risk,’ he decided, after a long space of consideration. ‘I might succeed in reversing the spell: but my knowledge is imperfect, and in any case I would not meddle with another man’s workings. Whoever enchanted it may have set a failsafe on it that cannot be undone save by his hand, for I do know that such a practice was once common: even if that is not the case, much of my art is lost, and what remains is clumsy.’ He spread his thin knotty hands in regret. The sympathy in his eyes was profound. ‘I would not dare risk meddling with that dagger, my lord.’

I nodded my understanding, and thanked him. I had seen enough.

* * *

 

It is a common enough thing for a man to take his ease with a young retainer, with a pretty serving girl, with a kitchen boy. Such things happen. They are never acknowledged save by bored courtiers as a last resort on days of the very slowest gossip. They are never admonished, so long as all is kept quiet. I think perhaps Kouje would have understood it better had I seen fit simply to take him as my bedwarmer: it would have been his duty to serve me thus, and nothing more. It was never that way between us. I told him that, as often as I thought he could bear to hear it. I would have told him also that to me, he was the very noblest of men, the best and the worthiest, but such flattery would only have shamed him more.

‘I have called you brother,’ he insisted, his hands in my hair and at my hips, his forehead pressed hot to my own. His lips trembled barely an inch from mine. The weight of him above me was giddying. ‘Even that was too much. You are my lord - I love you as I love the sun, but I - it is not for the likes of me to -’

‘You have also called me by my name,’ I insisted. He was like a furnace. His arms were strong around me in the dark. They gave me the courage I needed to be frank. ‘Answer me not as your lord, not as your brother in arms, but as Mamoru, your friend: have you not wanted this?’

For answer, he kissed me down and down into the sheets, desperately and with great longing.

I could have explained it away as the bond between warriors: I could have pretended it was only loyalty. I could have called it the love of the half-eaten peach, or the devotion of the cut sleeve, or any one of the thousand poetic names that existed to trivialise it in subtle and dissimulating ways. I did not know whether it was not perhaps what a dutiful wife and husband in a friendly and well-matched marriage might feel. I could not qualify it save to say that it was ours. It was what we had and what we wanted. That was the end of it.

The first winter of my rule set in. The cranes left the rivers: the world stood grey as a mirror beneath the white air. I read to him, sometimes, in rare moments of peace, and in return, he told me stories. Sometimes they were true. Sometimes they were not. Sometimes they were so old that it made no difference either way. He told me of speaking fishes and star maidens: he told me of men whisked away to live under the sea for half a day only to return to their homes to find the world aged three hundred years. He told me of murderous swans and bridges of swallows. He told me of the wrath of the gods.

He told me, shyly, that old story of the loyal retainer who died on his feet, having bought enough time for his lord to commit himself to an honourable death. I lay in his arms and clung to him against the cold, listened in silence like a child. I knew what he meant it to say. It was in my heart also, and had been all the days of my life. So high was the esteem in which we held each other that we would take our deaths together, or not at all.

* * *

 Red silk billowed out in the early wind: the doors and standing screens of my long audience chamber had been thrown wide to take in a little air. Still the clouds hung so low that tapers and lanterns had had to be lit. It would rain again before the morning was through. I shivered on my throne: I had dressed as simply as protocol allowed, and in colours so pale and fine I might have been in mourning. At my side, Men Hsiang watched me with open concern. He had treated me for too many cold-weather fevers in my childhood. I could not turn to console him: I could not allow my own resolve to waver.

I had called into the chamber as many of the most senior members of my court as could be roused so early. They waited, silent and cautious: most had brought with them double their usual tally of retainers, and I suspected that all were secretly armed. I read paranoia not in their still, untroubled faces, but in the restlessness of their servants. I called for more candles and had them set about my throne. The effect would be slightly dazzling, I knew. I was counting on that.

‘My friends,’ I said, when the room was so full of air and light that I could see clear into even the very furthest corners, ‘my noble friends and honest courtiers, I speak to you now of the assassinations that have disturbed the peace of our court.’ From the pale folds of my robe I drew the little red packet: unwrapped it for all to see, displayed the dagger. The blade had turned almost wholly dark, as though two drops of ink had fallen into a bowl of clear water: those red ruby eyes flashed and flashed. There came a stir from the court. ‘This is a piece of terrible magic,’ I announced, ‘the tool of a wicked conspirator who has targeted those I trust. Anyone whom this cursed blade pierces will die. None of us is safe. Any of you may well be the next target. I will not allow more of you to die - you who are my loyal servants and distinguished advisors.’

The candles flickered as the breeze blew: above the smoke and the perfume came a scent of rain and clean earth. I reached for the knot at my breast, untied it: let fall my outer silks so that the linen of my undergarments was laid bare.

‘My friends, I cannot allow this malice to go unchecked. Understand that what I do now is for the safety of us all.’

I held the dagger aloft. It was a stiff, dramatic gesture, stylised and deliberate as something out of any one of a hundred bad travelling plays. It was necessary. I almost appreciated the gasps that rose up as it caught the light. I remembered, as I often did even now, how I had enjoyed playing the sister, the wife, the servant. Emperor was only another part, and for I could feign bravery at least convincingly enough to fool the court, if not myself.

The blade had been eaten almost to lace: corruption was laid into it like filigree. That same corruption hung black in Kouje’s veins. This was not selfish. He would not understand: but it was not. This, to me, somehow was honour. This, to me, was our covenant. If he had been presumptuous in loving me, then so was I presumptuous in taking for myself the sacrifice that should have been his. Perhaps I was desperate. Perhaps I was selfish. I could no longer tell.

I had knelt that morning beside him, drawn the sheets up around his chin against the heavy mists, wiped his poor brow of sweat. I had touched his hand, his lips, his hair. I had said, ‘Forgive me.’

I remember one or two screams were begun and stifled even before I made the first incision, as my intent was understood. The pain was tremendous. I did my best to set it aside. Even so, to push against it was nearly impossible: it was my body that rebelled, not my mind. I remembered my duty. Blood rose seeping warm beneath my fingers, soaked bright into the pale silk. I remember looking out into that room that suddenly seemed very dark, flooded as though by a black river, with here and there an eddying spot of colour, and seeing blades flash as confused guardsmen started forward. Voices rose and flickered.

I drew the knife’s fragile blade along to the side, sawing at my own flesh. Everything stilled. They had recognised it for what it was: the stilted beginnings of a ritual death. The sanctity of that highest and most noble act alone had the power to silence them. They could not interfere, not now. I did not complete it, but drew the dagger from out my flesh, observed it black with my blood. There was a ringing in my head and a looseness in my arms. I think I swayed to one side: my vision surged dark. I remained upright.

‘My lord - stop!’ someone cried: just one voice, one voice I had expected.

I smiled, though I could barely see. ‘No, Lord Heike,’ I said, calm and clear. ‘I will not stop.’

‘My lord -!’

I snapped the blade in two.

It was as though the gash in my belly had been torn in two. I gasped, fell forward: began to retch. _Kouje._ Even as I felt myself begin to shake, the brittle halves of jade crumbled to dust in my hands. _Kouje!_

‘Stop it! Stop!’ Lord Heike’s voice was high and panicked. ‘Gion! Gion, end it! End it _now_!’

I remember even now the strangeness of the magic that followed: it can have lasted for barely a moment, and yet that moment seemed longer than a day, than a year. The red silks moved and moved in the wind, but the world was empty: it was as though I had been pulled up out of a scroll, plucked clean out of ink and into thought, and made to stand and watch the world. There was a stench in my mouth like death, a red ache that flared and drained away: a blot was cleansed from the page as though rinsed from silk with a steady hand. I blinked: was thrown violently back into my body.

The curse had been undone.

Sweat strung my eyes. I made no move to wipe it away. I looked out over the hall and saw many people caught in the act of flight, others engaged in bowing low to the ground, other still half-risen as though to help me: and there, sitting with his head in his hands and his shoulders shaking, was the lord Heike. That old, wizened retainer of his - Gion, I knew now - stood behind him with one blooded arm raised, a jade knife clutched in his hand.

My robes were still thick with blood: but the wound alone would not kill me, not if treated well. I had gambled wild and recklessly, risking both my life and Kouje’s on a single throw of the die: but I had won.

‘So, Lord Heike,’ I said. ‘This was your doing?’

He shook his head, but could not look up: could not look me straight in the eye. ‘Never you, my lord,’ he sobbed into his robes. ‘Never you! I am loyal to you, and I love you dearly - I only -’

‘You only killed three loyal members of my personal staff and sought to kill a fourth?’ I asked him, softly. ‘You only had your servant use illegal and brutal magic within the walls of my palace?’

‘It was never my intention to harm you, my lord!’ he cried, rising at last to his feet, seeming not to care that the entire court had witnessed his disgrace. ‘Those who died were bad men - thieves, all three of them, petty embezzlers, money-laundering crooks - I never sought to harm you! All I wanted was to rid this place of a man who has no right to be here at all - a vicious man, a murderer, a traitor magician who dabbles in arcane arts - make no mistake, my lord, he has sold his allegiance to Volstov, and he was as steeped in evil magic as any in his youth!’

It took me a moment to understand: I was faint with bloodloss and dizzy still with pain: Men Hsiang hovered at my side, anxiety writ plain on his face: but then, even as I realised who Heike meant, Lord Yoshida stood up.

‘Lord Heike,’ he began, slowly, stumblingly, as though in dread, ‘if this was done - to frame me - if you intended to place the blame for these attacks on me, or to, to slight me, somehow - I know that we have quarrelled in the past, but -’

I once saw a great mountain cat, burnt and bleeding, slink hunted in a rocky corner and wait there for death, trembling, its head low: but a single jab from a man’s spear was enough to kindle in it new rage, so that it lashed out and tore his throat out before escaping. There came a flash in Lord Heike’s eyes as he lifted his head: and staggering suddenly to his feet he screamed, ‘You will not speak to me! My daughter is dead because of you!’

The lord Yoshida’s old square shoulders sagged. He passed a hand over his face: stood a moment in silence. Then: ‘I loved your daughter.’ Bowing so low to me that his forehead touched the floor, he said, ‘My lord, forgive my father-in-law, if you can,’ and then turned and strode away from the court, out into the rainy morning.

Lord Heike fell to his knees and wept.

It was an ugly scene, and one I had not anticipated. I would not do Heike the further dishonour of sentencing him publically: I would speak with him alone. Driving my fist into my wound to buy myself a few more minutes of strength, I stood.

‘Let all of you gathered here bear witness that I your empreror will die by my own hand before I allow traitors to corrupt my court,’ I said aloud to the court: drew in a breath that ached unbearably. It was like acting in a play: I was a king out of a song, and so I could be brave, show no sign of pain or fear. ‘I will not suffer my courtiers to live in fear and die with dishonour! This is and always shall be a place of honour, my friends a place for men to declare their offenses openly and face each other with integrity - not a place for petty grievances to fester until they kill innocent men, for assassins to prey on the loyal and the just. I will die to see the integrity of my rule preserved.’

The words were clever. My gambit had prevailed. I had preserved the respect of my court. I had saved my friend’s life. Yet my father’s friend Yoshida had fled the presence of an old grief, and still Heike wept in his sorrow and his madness, and in the corner a magician who had sold his skills for money watched us all with dark impassive eyes. Blood pooled at my feet. None of this was gentle, as I had once been. None of this was worthy of song. 

* * *

Lord Heike took his own life, in the end. I did not request it of him. I only asked that he punish himself how he saw fit. I do not know what became of the magician Gion. I wept for them both when I was alone, and for Yoshida: whose young wife had died many years ago, I learned, through some oversight of his own for which he had never forgiven himself. Lord Heike’s revenge had been a long time coming.

For my part, I sat and I waited: confined to my chambers for a week of strict rest on Men Hsiang’s orders, I sat and I watched the rain fall pale over autumn. The paths were choked with yellow and brown, and all the little silver streams of my private gardens roofed over with fallen leaves, so that the fish could barely see the sky. The wound in my belly was ugly and full of fire, and the scar it left would not fade quickly. It would not be my first such scar. Still I watched the rain, and still I waited: and on the fifth day of our shared but separate convalescence, Kouje was permitted, at last, to see me.

He was weak, still, and his hands heavily bandaged, for the curse had done him great damage. He did his best not to show his hurt as he stood in the doorway, but I knew his face like a mother tongue, and noted with pain the marks of hurt and weariness: how pale he was, how drawn. He bowed as low as he could for the sake of the servants who were with us, and whom I summarily dismissed: then stood a long while before me in silence, as though weighing his words very carefully.

‘I am told you spoke to the court like a hero of old,’ he said, at last. ‘I am told that you proclaimed to all how you value honour and integrity above your own life. I am told there are a hundred songs already written about it, a thousand admiring verses.’ His face flickered a moment. ‘You can do no wrong in the eyes of your people, it seems.’

I could not look at him as I said it. I was not brave at all, and only he knew it: stabbing myself with a cursed blade was nothing to seeing him disappointed. I stared out at the trees. ‘But not in yours,’ I said, evenly.

He made a small noise as though of pain, quickly cut off: took a moment to compose himself. ‘My lord,’ he began, and so I knew what was to follow: ‘my lord, I feel that our - our friendship, if you will forgive me to presume that, has perhaps - grown too intimate of late.’

I nodded. Still I could not turn to face him. ‘In what way?’

‘You risked your life to save mine,’ he said, after a long and silent struggle, and with great shame shaking his every word. ‘I am not worth that. You are good, and you are kind, and so you see goodness and kindness in every man, even in me, but - my lord, I beg you to understand that I am not worth that. I beg you, if you can see nothing else, to understand that - all that I am, my entire existence, is given to you, and to your safety. I beg you not to be reckless.’

‘I risked your life to bring an assassin to justice,’ I corrected him, archly as I could. ‘That, to me, can hardly smack of favouritism.’ I struggled to keep my voice light: ‘If anything, I should be apologising to you. Breaking that blade nearly killed us both.’

‘My own death does not concern me,’ he said. ‘You know this. My lord - my lord, if you cannot see - perhaps it is best that - that - we no longer -’

The rain came down on the yellow leaves. There was an ache in my breast I could not name. This was what it always came to, in the end, however much I tried to pretend that I would never have to set aside my innocence for the sake of my rule: there would always be loss. ‘You have never wanted this, have you, Kouje?’ I said, finally. ‘If it was only ever out of duty to me - you know I would never hold you to that. I would hate that.’

I heard a rustle of fabric, a faint hissing breath. I turned. He was kneeling before me despite the pain it must have cost him, forehead pressed to the floor, fists outstretched. ‘I have always wanted this,’ he told the stones, hoarsely. ‘It is not enough. Some things must be set aside.’

The air moved, brought rain with it into the room. I stood, albeit with difficult, and crossed slowly to him: lifted his face into my hands, regarded him without pity.

‘I should apologise to you,’ I told him, ‘because I know that you feel any wound I take twice over, and still I wounded myself. I know what my death would do to you, and yet I risked it. That is the price I will pay to see my court kept free of treachery, and my courtiers kept safe.’ I pressed my fingers to his pulse, felt it quicken. ‘When you can no longer give your life for the sake of our shared duty, it will fall to me. There is no shame in that. Can you not trust me to know my own worth, and to weigh it accordingly against the worth of duty?’

He closed his eyes, pressed his lips to my palm. ‘You will never know your own worth,’ he said: quite sadly. His breath came heavy a moment: I could see him struggle to speak. ‘Mamoru,’ he managed at last, ‘please never do this again.’

I gave a small, sad laugh, sank down beside him. He put his arms around me and held me close. I put my face against his neck and wept.

* * *

That night as we held each other we were careful of each other's hurts: I kissed his bandaged hands and sutured sores, and he put his palms to my wound as though he could have healed it with his touch alone. We took care to navigate each other's scars. Only we would ever see them. I think we understood each other better, after that.


End file.
